


Memories Caught On River Rocks

by BuddyTheMeanPeacock



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route Spoilers, Other, Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-08 19:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20840777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuddyTheMeanPeacock/pseuds/BuddyTheMeanPeacock
Summary: "I offer you a proposition, child."The war was won, at the cost of dear friends. An offer given, to go back and save them. The unseen consequences of taking up a goddess' proposal.





	Memories Caught On River Rocks

They had killed Claude. Dimitri was struck down. Rhea, now slain and dead at their feet.

All for the greater good of Fodlan's people. For Edelgard's righteous ideals of equality and freedom.

Byleth feels his chest tighten, and he falls over. He thinks he can hear El shouting his name after him, but it's too hard to hear her over the burning flames, the pain in his chest, the black of his vision.

But he hears someone else clearly.

_"Byleth."_

Suddenly he sees her. Sothis.

She is not on her throne, nor on the concept of ground in the eternal darkness they are in. She hovers far above him, distant. He realizes at this moment how human she had made her presence feel around him in the past, lowering herself to pretend to need ground to stand on. At this moment, as she looks down to him with an expressionless stare, he truly sees that she is _not_ human.

_"You have killed Rhea,"_ she speaks, her voice echoing thousands of times in the emptiness, surrounding his senses. Nothing at all like her soothing condolences, her snappy quips. Cold and dead, just like the heart in his chest.

He simply nods to her in response.

_"I still know not my whole identity, and yet... I feel grief,"_ though she says this with a dead throat. _"I long for her to live. For her blood to not be spilled. For her mind to not be lost in the haze of madness."_

Byleth's eyes narrowed, and he feels a different burning build in his chest. He could not understand. After all that Rhea has done to the people of Fodlan, forcing Crests amongst the humans so that the weak would stay under the boot of those chosen by "the goddess." Sothis should be enraged, that her name was sullied and misused by the archbishop. These words she speaks now breed accusations on his tongue, of her truly working with Rhea in enslaving humanity.

"What's wrong with you?!" He shouts to her, desperate to know _why_.

She answers another question his words asked. "_I am like this, for all time in this world has been stopped. Only we move in the still waters.__"_

He feels his eyes widen, all of his previous thoughts struck down. "What?"

_"I offer you a proposition, child,"_ she continues, brushing aside his outburst. _"I lay before you two options. The first, is that I leave you; for you to begin and end a truly human life with the one by your side, and the three dead at your feet._

_"The other, I take us back to the beginning. Where you foolishly risked your life to save the life of one girl, so that you may instead perhaps save three. You grieve for them as I do Rhea, no matter your talk of their deaths serving the greater good."_

He sucked in his breath. Claude, his eyes filled with unfathomable horror as his dreams died with him at the hands of his beloved Teach, the few times his face showed true emotion. Dimitri, his mind rotten with madness from the need for revenge and dying as a shield to a monster, his ideals of honor and justice burned away in the eternal flames. Sothis was right - oh, _so_ right. Every life slain by his hands cut into him, but those two, they stabbed him with a poisoned dagger, thrust a spear through his chest. He missed them dearly. He had wanted - _ still_ wants - for them to live, so badly that it pains to breathe.

But Edelgard. El, who has gone through so much in the war, lived with the weight of thousands of lives on her shoulders and heart so that she may save thousands more. Who has to live with those saved viewing her as a monster. Who can now finally rid of those who slither in the dark, be rid of their vile influence on her and her family. To throw away all of her sacrifices on just a chance...

Edelgard, the one who lives, one who he knows also mourns the loss of the duke who could also keep her mind sharp and challenged, and the king who gave her a glimpse of a childhood and friendship. El, whom he knows wants things to end another way, for all three of them to see the world she envisioned. For her last moments with them to not be of fear and hatred, but of friendship and trust. To know there was a chance to rid of even some of her guilt...

Byleth looks up to Sothis' eyes, feeling his fists clench at his sides.

"I want to go back."

To a time where they were all amicable, reasonable, unbound by the duties of thier names and the shackles of madness and the need for survival. He can make it work. There has to be a way.

Perhaps he could even save Rhea. He knows what this proposal was truly for, after all.

Sothis nods. _"So be it."_

Like a thrashing current, he feels himself be swept away, Sothis' form fading as everything rushed passed him. Slaying Rhea, Dimitri, Claude, waking from his slumber, a second of black, then he was falling, witnessing Edelgard be crowned, accepting Sothis' power, confronting Kronya and Solon, feeling his father die in his arms, meeting El at the Goddess Tower, felling the corrupted people of Remire, participating in the Battle of the Eagle and Lion right after Flayn's kidnapping, witnessing Miklan's transformation in a beast, beholding the death of Lonato, seeing the Black Eagles's first kills, overseeing the Black Eagles in the mock battle, meeting the Black Eagles, choosing the Black Eagles, walking to the monastery-

"I appreciate your help back there. Your skill is beyond question."

Byleth starts. He sees them: Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude. Edelgard, her hair mostly let down, her eye catching cravat and stunning red leggings, Dimitri, mess of unkempt hair with his brilliant blue sash across his chest. Claude, his strange asymmetrical braid and low-cut uniform. All so young in the face, their appearance strange and foreign after seeing them grown. Yet he remembers, memories coming back to him of his first time meeting them here.

And he catches the differences.

Catches how Edelgard was closer to him, her voice and eyes betraying the adoration she had after all they've been through during the war. Catches the way Dimitri eyes Edelgard with flickers of the hatred that would rage and consume his mind and heart. Catches the tension, the fear, the betrayal in Claude's eyes as he sees Byleth, as if he were about to be cut down by the one he trusts most. He recovers back to his facade of nonchalance quickly, just as Dimitri shakes his head and pays his attention back to Byleth, just as Edelgard gathers herself and gives him space.

"You're clearly an experienced mercenary. And your father... that would be Jeralt, the Blade Breaker?"

She continues on, her tone far more formal, as if everything were normal.

But it wasn't. Not at all.

**Author's Note:**

> An idea I thought up after watching the end of Crimson Flower. I'm not sure whether or not this will be a multi-chapter story, or just the beginning of a plot that won't go anywhere. If I can actually manage to keep track of a story idea to the end I'll try to do so, but otherwise ye. Hope y'all enjoy (:


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